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Warcraft III
2002-12-01 20:48I'm playing the Warcraft III single player demo, and I'm not that impressed. It's good, but not great. It essentially feels like an evolution from Warcraft II, which kinda makes sense. (WCII was a great game - it revolutionised the RTS genre, to the point where Age of Empires plays like a blatant copy)
WCIII has some innovative touches - the hero system, much like the hero system seen in some tabletop wargames. However, some other things which are new to the series have been done elsewhere before and better. Unit build queues are useful, but capped at 7 items. You can still only select 12 units at once, and there are restrictions on how big your army can get. When units are stood still, they will respond to attacks, but en route, they're just dumb. This allows the computer's speed advantage to kick in1. It's not a bad game, but not entirely to my taste - I won't be rushing to buy it.
1Rant: Computer opponents in RTS games seem to be very adept at selecting individual units and assigning them combat targets. This is one of the things that makes them inhuman. This is most obvious when two large groups of units run into one another - the computer opponents in most RTS games will effortlessly break their formation up and attack several or many units at once. A human player would have to be making mouse clicks at the rate of dozens per second, all over the screen, in order to match the computer.
To some degree, this behaviour is built-in in ranged combat units, such as those in the C&C series, or the archers in other fantasy games. However, in melee combat units, it's rare, and the computer has a real tactical advantage.
WCIII has some innovative touches - the hero system, much like the hero system seen in some tabletop wargames. However, some other things which are new to the series have been done elsewhere before and better. Unit build queues are useful, but capped at 7 items. You can still only select 12 units at once, and there are restrictions on how big your army can get. When units are stood still, they will respond to attacks, but en route, they're just dumb. This allows the computer's speed advantage to kick in1. It's not a bad game, but not entirely to my taste - I won't be rushing to buy it.
1Rant: Computer opponents in RTS games seem to be very adept at selecting individual units and assigning them combat targets. This is one of the things that makes them inhuman. This is most obvious when two large groups of units run into one another - the computer opponents in most RTS games will effortlessly break their formation up and attack several or many units at once. A human player would have to be making mouse clicks at the rate of dozens per second, all over the screen, in order to match the computer.
To some degree, this behaviour is built-in in ranged combat units, such as those in the C&C series, or the archers in other fantasy games. However, in melee combat units, it's rare, and the computer has a real tactical advantage.